"Six Records of Agarwood", Part Two · Volume Nine: The Line That Was Scraped Away

Autumn in the capital is dry—so dry that paper rustles on its own.

Liu Zhiqiang spread the blood ledger his father had left him on the desk, turned off the ceiling light, kept only a desk lamp, lowered its head, and let the light graze the paper at an angle—this was an old trick the mounting master had taught him: **look at the indentation, not the ink**. Ink can be scraped away; the pits in the paper cannot.

Those three characters were still on the last page, "scattered clean," with brown seeping through the strokes. Below that was a patch of paper scraped fuzzy, its fibers turned up like a scar that had healed badly.

He lowered the lamp another inch.

The instant the light slanted across, characters surfaced in the pits. Not ink, but indentations pressed in—before scraping, the pen tip had pressed hard, and the paper remembered.

That line was seven characters:

**What Shennong buried is the name.**

Liu Zhiqiang stared at these seven characters, pressed his fingertip to them, and could feel the grooves of the strokes. He suddenly understood why his grandfather had scraped it away: **that was not an instruction, it was a key.**

He took a photo and sent it to Qu Huaisha. Three minutes later, Qu Huaisha replied not with text but with a voice message, his voice trembling:

"Don't touch that page yet. It matches on my end too."

---

Qu Huaisha was in Changsha, in a windowless sorting room, with four Chu slips spread before him—unearthed last year, and no one had dared to name them, because one character appeared repeatedly on the slips: the top half was "grain," and no one recognized the bottom half.

He wrote the seven characters "What Shennong buried is the name" on a sticky note and checked them one by one.

That sentence in the slip text—he had read it for three months and could not make it out:

> The Emperor buried six woods in the south, each tied to a **name**; when the six woods return, the names gather, and once gathered—则——

Then it broke off. Worm-eaten.

"The Emperor" is Shennong. "Six woods" are the six incense woods. The Chu slips say: Shennong buried six pieces of wood in the south, each tied to a **name**; when the six woods return to their places, the names will come together.

Qu Huaisha pushed the sticky note away and suddenly laughed, an ugly laugh.

"We were all wrong," he said to Liu Zhiqiang on the other end of the phone. "The six pieces of incense are not incense. What Shennong buried was never incense—it was **six names**. The incense is only the box that holds the names. For nine hundred years, everyone who fought over incense, offered incense, sold incense, scattered incense was actually moving names."

"And the seventh?" Liu Zhiqiang asked.

"The seventh is 'gathering,'" Qu Huaisha said. "When the six names are all together, they generate a seventh—not a name, but **the person who was named**."

Both ends of the phone went silent.

Outside the window, Changsha had its first rain of the year.

---

That same afternoon, Wang Guanshu went to an appointment with no name.

The text message had only one sentence: "Bring the purple one. Dusk, Changdian, backyard of the old bookshop." No signature, no number attribution—the sender field was empty.

She shouldn't have gone. But the purple luxury item in her bosom hadn't cooled since morning, hot through the brocade box, like a piece of charcoal that refused to sleep.

The backyard of the old bookshop in Changdian was piled with waste paper and broken wooden chairs. The dusk light slanted onto the blue bricks, and a person stood with their back to her, wearing a gray cloth shirt, very thin.

"You came." The person didn't turn around.

"Who are you?"

"I'm like you, a person who moves names." The person turned—it was a new face, around thirty, with clean features, missing half of the little finger on the right hand, "My grandfather was too. He moved the yellow one."

Wang Guanshu held the brocade box tighter. Six pieces of incense: white, purple, yellow, green, red, black. She knew the yellow one had fetched a sky-high price in Hong Kong twenty years ago, and its whereabouts were unknown since.

"What do you want?"

"Not the incense." The person shook their head, "I want to take a look. One look is enough."

Wang Guanshu hesitated for a long time, but finally opened a crack in the brocade box.

At the moment the fragrance surged out, all the waste paper in the yard turned a page simultaneously.

The person in the gray cloth shirt knelt down. Not to her, but to that wisp of smoke. He reached out and traced a line in the smoke with that half finger—the smoke parted and closed again, like water.

"How many is this?" he asked in a low voice.

"How many what?"

"People who have seen it." He looked up, eyes bright, "I started looking for the six incenses at eighteen, and I've been searching for twelve years. I've seen three whites, two purples, zero yellows—today you are the second to see the yellow... no."

He suddenly laughed: "The one in your bosom is not purple."

Wang Guanshu froze.

"It's pink now." He said, "The floral scent carries a powdery note, meaning 'it's about to unite.' It's looking for its other five petals."

A muffled sound came from afar—not thunder. It was from the west of the city, some incense burner had exploded.

Wang Guanshu closed the brocade box and turned to leave. The person behind didn't follow, only said one sentence:

"Tell Liu Zhiqiang—don't read the next line of those seven characters."

"Already read." She said.

"Then it's bad." The person's voice was very light, "Those who have read it, their names are recorded."

---

At eleven at night, Liu Zhiqiang, Qu Huaisha, and Wang Guanshu met up in a video call.

Qu Huaisha held the facsimile of the Chu bamboo slips up to the camera, Liu Zhijiang enlarged the photo of the pressure marks in the blood ledger, and Wang Guanshu placed the purple luxury item under the webcam—in the frame it gave off a very faint wisp of smoke, without fire.

The three of them spoke a sentence at the same time, then stopped at the same time.

Liu Zhijiang spoke first: "What Shennong buried was a name."

Qu Huaisha said: "When the six names gather, a seventh is born."

Wang Guanshu said: "It is looking for its other five petals."

The instant the screen went dark, that wisp of smoke gathered in the camera into a shape—not a character, but the **outline of a person**, very faint, scattering in a second.

None of the three said a word.

After a long while, Liu Zhijiang finally spoke, his voice hoarse: "My father probably knew about this. That's why he wrote 'scatter it clean.' What gets scattered isn't the incense, it's the names—once the names scatter, the seventh cannot be born."

"Then what about your grandfather?" Wang Guanshu asked. "Why did he scrape it?"

Liu Zhijiang looked at the scraped, roughened paper and said slowly: "What he scraped away was what came after the two characters 'a name too.' The three characters my father left are a blade; what my grandfather scraped away is the sheath. One wanted to scatter, the other to hide—but both agreed on one thing:"

He paused.

"**That seventh one must not be born.**"

Outside the window, the night sky over the capital was dry and bright, without a single star.

And on the screens of the three of them, after that wisp of smoke had fully scattered, a line of extremely faint white marks appeared in the camera frame—not smoke, not light, as if someone on the inside of the lens had written a character with a finger and immediately wiped it away.

No one could see clearly what that character was.

*(Part Two · Volume Nine, End)*

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English

**The Incense Six Records — Part II, Chapter 9: The Scraped Line**

Back in Beijing, Liu Zhijiang shuts off the ceiling light and rakes a low lamp across the last page of his father's blood-stained ledger — an old paper-mounter's trick: *read the impression, not the ink.* Ink can be scraped away; the dent in the paper cannot. Beneath the three words *"scatter it clean"* rises a line of seven pressed characters: **"What Shennong buried was a name."** His grandfather scraped it — not a bequest, but a key.

In Changsha, Qu Huaisha matches those seven characters against four Chu bamboo slips he has failed to read for three months: *"The Emperor buried six woods in the south, each tied to one name; when the six return, the names gather, and gathering—"* The slips break off there, worm-eaten. The realization lands hard: the six incenses were never incense. Shennong buried six **names**; the incense is only the box that carries them. And the seventh is not a name at all — it is *the person who gets named*.

In Beijing, Wang Guanshu keeps an unsigned appointment ("Bring the purple one. Dusk. Factory Row. Behind the old bookshop"). A thin man in grey with half a little finger kneels to the smoke and tells her the purple has already turned pink — *"it is looking for its other five petals."* His warning: *"Tell Liu Zhijiang — don't read the line after those seven characters."* She answers: *"He already has."* Then: *"Then we're in trouble. Whoever reads it gets their name written down."*

On a three-way video call that night, the smokeless thread of incense gathers for one second into the outline of a **person**. Liu Zhijiang understands at last: his father's *"scatter it clean"* was never about incense — it was about scattering the names so the seventh cannot be born. His father left a knife; his grandfather scraped away the sheath. Both agreed on one thing: **the seventh must not be born.** As the call ends, a faint white mark appears inside the camera lens — a character written and wiped away before anyone could read it.

*To be continued: Chapter 10 — The Character Inside the Lens.*

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العربية

**سجلات العود الستة — الجزء الثاني، الفصل التاسع: السطر المحكوم**

Liu Zhijiang returns to Beijing, turns off the ceiling light, and passes a low lamp over the last page of his father's blood-stained record — an old trick he learned from a paper folder: *read the trace, not the ink*. For ink can be rubbed away, but what sinks into the paper cannot. And beneath the three words "scatter them completely" floats a line of seven compressed letters: **"What Shen Nong buried was a name."** It was his grandfather who rubbed it — not a will, but a key.

And in Changsha, Qu Huaisha matches those seven with four Chu bamboo slips he had been unable to read for three months: *"The Emperor buried six woods in the south, tied a name to each; when the six return, the names gather, and their gathering…"* The slips break off at this point, eaten by worms. And the knowledge falls heavy: the six agarwoods were never agarwood at all. What Shen Nong buried was six **names**; agarwood is merely a vessel that carries them. As for the seventh, it is not a name at all — it is *the one who is named*.

And in Beijing, Wang Guanshu keeps an unsigned appointment ("Bring the purple. Sunset. The factory row. Behind the old bookshop"). A thin man in a gray robe, half his little finger missing, kneels to the smoke and tells her the purple has turned pink: *"He is looking for his other five petals."* And he warns her: *"Tell Liu Zhijiang — do not read the line after the seven letters."* She answers: *"He has read it."* He says: *"Then we are doomed. Whoever reads it, his name is written."*

And in a three-way video call that night, the agarwood thread gathers without fire for one second into the shape of a **human**. And Liu Zhijiang finally understands: "scatter them completely" was never about the agarwood — it was about scattering the names so that the seventh would not be born. His father left a knife, and his grandfather rubbed the sheath. And the two agreed on one thing: **the seventh must not be born.** And when the call ends, a faint white trace appears inside the camera lens — a letter that was written and then erased before anyone could read it.

*To be continued: Chapter Ten — The Letter Inside the Lens.*

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> **Next Chapter Preview · Volume Ten "That Letter in the Lens"**: The three parties each go after that white trace — Liu Zhijiang returns to the mounting master to examine the paper, Qu Huaisha applies to consult the original Chu slips, and Wang Guanshu is summoned a second time by the gray-robed man with the missing little finger. And the holder of the first of the six incense pieces, "Chi," is called out in front of the censer at Quanzhou Kaiyuan Temple by the name he changed thirty years ago.名字。